Throughout the years spanned by the U.S. Vital Statistics Linked Birth and Infant Death Data (1983-2002), birth weights are measured most precisely for children of white and highly educated mothers. As a result, less healthy children, who are more likely to be of low socioeconomic status, are...

We analyze child mortality in Vietnam focusing on gender aspects. Contrary to several other countries in the region, mortality rates for boys are substantially larger than for girls. A large rural-urban mortality difference exists, but much more so for boys than for girls. A higher education...

The infant mortality rate (IMR) in Colombia has been subject to considerable inconsistent reporting, estimation, and debate. The registered rate for 2009 is 13.69, while the estimated rate by Colombia's Departamento Nacional de Estadística (DANE) is 20.13. These rates combined with different...

Objective:To measure socioeconomic inequalities and differential risk in infant mortality on national and regional levels in Chile from 1990 to 2005, and propose new policy targets. Methods The study analysed Chilean vital events registries from 1990 to 2005 for infant mortality by maternal...

The excess female mortality in India and other South Asian countries is no longer contentious. Less known are the reasons for such excess female mortality in the country. In this study, we argue that intra-household gender-discrimination in receipt of medical attention can be one of the most...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic shocks on infant mortality in India and investigates likely mechanisms. A recent OECD-dominated literature shows that mortality at most ages is pro-cyclical but similar analyses for poorer countries are scarce, and both income risk and...

Between one and two million migrants reside in cramped conditions in Nairobi's slums without proper access to sanitation or affordable clean water. Children in such areas are exposed to enormous risks, health risks in particular. Using longitudinal data collected every four months during the...

The socio-economic status of Indian Muslims is, on average, considerably lower than that of upper caste Hindus. Muslims have higher fertility and shorter birth spacing and are a minority group that, it has been argued, have poorer access to public goods. They nevertheless exhibit substantially...

The present paper provides new evidence that hospital delivery can significantly lower child mortality risks, especially among vulnerable young adolescent mothers in Bangladesh. We exploit the exogenous variation in community's access to local health facilities (both traditional and modern)...

I provide plausibly causal estimates of the effect of birth weight using data from the universe of twins, triplets, and quadruplets born between 1995-2000 in the United States. Infants from higher-order multiple births have lower birth weights, but experience smaller reductions in infant health...